


The Letter

by TheWalkingGrimes



Series: Tales of District Four [26]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, pretty tame, vague mentions of death and war because Hunger Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28200675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWalkingGrimes/pseuds/TheWalkingGrimes
Summary: With the end of the war approaching, Finnick considers a lifeafter.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Finnick Odair & Finnick's Brother, Gale Hawthorne & Finnick Odair, Katniss Everdeen & Finnick Odair, Primrose Everdeen & Finnick Odair
Series: Tales of District Four [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018845
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	The Letter

“Finnick!”

He’s walking between lunch and afternoon training with his training squad when he hears his name echoing down the corridor. He breaks off mid-story, to see Jax Lowhill bounding down the hall toward him - or as close to _bounding_ as anyone in District Thirteen ever would, really.

“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” Jax asks, all coltish fourteen year old enthusiasm even under that Thirteen restraint. “It’ll be quick.” 

“Yeah, for sure. I’ll catch up guys,” Finnick tells the others, who go on past him. Gale actually gives his shoulder a comradly pat as he goes past. Whatever weirdness that was between them is gone as if it never existed now - dissipated almost as soon as Annie and Peeta were rescued from the Capitol. 

Finnick’s pretty sure that has more to do with Peeta than Annie though. Gale’s moved from looking at Katniss with something resembling frustrated yearning to hopeless resignation instead. Any delusions Gale held about Katniss’s preoccupation with Peeta being due to him being out of reach have vanished.

It’s a bad situation all around, but at least Gale isn’t shooting Finnick subtle glares when he thinks Finnick isn’t looking anymore. He’s finally figured out there’s only one person who will ever be in Katniss’s heart.

_(Finnick’s used to be the target of jealousy, but he did laugh for a good minute about it when he asked Prim why Gale constantly looked like he wanted to shoot a crossbow through his head and Prim explained the situation to him._

“Katniss?” _He questioned her, as if the idea were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “But she’s - she’s seventeen and-”_ Closed off and untrusting. Obviously in love with Peeta. 

Basically my sister. 

_“I know.” Prim replied, as if she could hear everything he left unspoken. “But Gale never expected Peeta to be a threat, so he’s just… he’s wary now. Katniss doesn’t trust easily and she trusts you. It worries him.”_

_“He really thinks I’d make a move on Katniss, on_ anyone, _while Annie’s...” The words die off in his throat._ While Annie’s... While Annie’s...

_“He doesn’t really know you.”_

_Just what he’s seen on TV. Well, it wasn’t like this was the first time Finnick had dealt with someone assuming they knew him based on what he was like on TV. He could handle it._

_Nothing Gale Hawthorne thought of him could be worse than his own flesh and blood turning away from him.)_

“I’ve got my assignment.” Jax tells him, a twinge of nervousness behind his voice. He’s one of the doctor’s kids and he used to visit the medical wing occasionally, before he turned fourteen and got swept up into training. “I’m being deployed to Four tomorrow, to help them… y’know restore order and get some things rebuilt. Distribute rations and what not.”

“Good for you.” Finnick replies, genuine. Jax’s mother will be relieved, he’s sure. From the reports, Four’s been solidly under rebel control for the past couple months and should be a relatively safe assignment. Plus, after being trapped inside this overgrown termite colony his entire life, the kid could definitely use some sun. “Do me a favor, take a swim for me when you get there - tell the ocean I miss her. I’m sure she misses me.”

“A _swim?”_ Jax’s eyes are huge. He knows how to swim, all the soldiers of Thirteen are trained, but the tiny swimming pool he’s been in will be nothing compared to the ocean. “Won’t it be cold?”

“A bit, but Four’s a lot warmer than it is here.” Jax will probably find it _freezing,_ but Finnick’s not going to tell him that. They’re nearing the point in the year when all the teenagers would get up at two in the morning (during the Peacekeeper’s shift change, although Finnick’s pretty sure they know about the tradition and just never bothered to stop it - possibly because they found it somewhat amusing) and run naked into the ocean, trying to wait each other out for the honor of being the _Ice Champion._ It was a stupid and dangerous tradition - there was a rumor that one boy literally froze one of his balls’ off once - but thinking on it now brought a smile to Finnick’s face.

“Alright, I can do that for you. Is there anything else you want me to do?”

Finnick cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we’ve been doing letter programs for some of the other refugees.” Explains Jax, a bit awkward. “They’re all official for some of the other districts, but I figured since there’s only two refugees from Four, maybe nobody’s offered it so I thought… if there’s anyone you want to get in contact with, I could deliver some letters for you. And Annie.”

 _Oh._ It’s a sweet offer, and Jax is correct in assuming no one else has made it yet. 

But Finnick also hasn’t _asked,_ and he definitely could’ve. 

“You’re leaving tomorrow?” He asks Jax now, suddenly overwhelmed by the lack of time that he’s being given to make this decision.

“Around noon.” Jax confirms. “So, if you find me in the morning at breakfast, I can pack them away. _Oh!_ But make sure it’s under five ounces, because that’s how much weight I’m allowed left in my kit.” If it had been Katniss or Johanna or Haymitch or even Gale making the comment, Finnick’s sure it would’ve been sarcastic, but Jax says it with the absolute earnestness only a Thirteen native could be capable of. 

“Right. Well, thank you.” Finnick makes sure to say, because it really _is_ a sweet offer and it’s not Jax’s fault that Finnick isn’t sure how to feel about it.

Letters. To Four. 

_Right._

* * *

  
  


Finnick expects Annie to feel just as lost about the situation when he brings it up to her during Reflection.

Instead, she immediately commences the arduous task of procuring the necessary paper (made much more difficult than it really needs to be thanks to Thirteen’s stringent rationing of literal every supply), and starts dividing them up into maybe fifteen individual notes. 

“Old Hank down at the pier?” He questions, once he gets nosy and rests his chin on her shoulder so he can read what she’s scrawling so hastily. “You’re sending a letter to Old Hank? Really?”

“I didn’t have pocket money on me the last time I went down there, and he spotted me for some oysters.” Annie explains. “I wanted to make sure he knows I haven’t forgotten that I need to pay him back.”

“I’m sure, given the circumstances, he’d forgive you if you had.” _If he’s still alive._

Either Annie feels the shift in tension in his body, or she’s evolved to reading his mind (both are a likely possibility). “The more letters I send, the more I could possibly get in return.” She says. “It’s so hard to know what’s going on there from just the official reports, and I just want to check in and make sure…”

Finnick kisses the side of her head. “You’re the best person I know.”

“Not true.” Annie says lightly.

 _“So_ true.”

“We’ve been down the road before, it’s not a productive argument.” 

“Exactly, so you should just agree with me because deep down you know I’m right.”

Annie rolls her eyes, but she’s never been good at keeping the edges of her mouth from turning up toward him. “Oh Finnick, when has that line ever worked for you?”

“On you? Never,” and the ruefulness is only halfway a joke. She’ll probably never fully be able to see herself through his eyes, but Finnick will do his damndest to remind her everyday who she is to him in the hopes that someday she will. 

“Are you going to write a letter?”

 _A_ letter. Because she knows him, knows there’s really only person that he would be writing to. 

“I don’t know.” He tells her honestly, sitting on their bed and running his hands through his hair. “I should, right? I should write to him.”

Annie sets down her pen and gives him a thoughtful look. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she says, exactly like she’s reminded him a million times before.

“But I should _want_ to.” Finnick insists. “I mean, he’s my brother. I should want to write to him. Look at you, writing to all these people…”

“I want to make sure they’re _safe.”_ She points out. “We know that Lotan and Celia are safe. They were under protective custody.”

“Which would’ve made it probably easy for me to get a message to them, if I wanted to. But the thought never even crossed my mind,” admits Finnick, feeling the guilt dragging down in his stomach. “I just… god, what would I even say, Annie? I haven’t talked to him in years.”

She crosses over to him (the compartment is _tiny,_ so really she’s there in three steps) and sits down next to him, pressing her hand on his upper back. “If you wanted to, you could see this as a chance to start over. We’re all going to be rebuilding for a while.”

 _If the rebellion succeeds_ is the unspoken line. These days, it feels a lot less fantastical. With the invasion of the Capitol so imminent, it’s like they’re all finally allowing themselves to see a world _after._

A world _after_ is beautiful, yet terrifying.

It means going back home to Four and making the life with Annie that they always whispered about, sweet fantasies that felt impossibly far away. They’ll go home and get to be together and nobody will be able to say or do a damn thing about it. They can have _children_ and won’t have to live under fear of them being taken away because one of them crossed the wrong line, or even just due to cruel fate.

Whenever Finnick has dreamed about this future, his brother hasn't been part of it. 

“I don’t know where to start.” Finnick admits. “Between the Quell, and the propos, I don’t know what he’s seen or what he knows. He probably knows we got married, that there was a wedding and he wasn’t there. And then…” The lump that forms in his throat is stubborn and refuses to be swallowed away. “He always… I think there was a part of him that was never really convinced our mother’s death was an accident.”

Annie presses the heel of her hand into his shoulder blade, soothingly working out a knot there. Other than that, she doesn’t react. 

“After it happened, he had all these questions, and he got so _angry_ at me whenever I tried to get him to drop it, and then eventually he stopped talking to me about it and…” Finnick shakes his head. “He’d look at me like he thought I knew something. And now even if he didn’t see that propo, he’s probably heard something by now and…” _if you refuse, he kills someone you love._ “He has to have put the pieces together by now. He’ll know it’s my fault. He’s not an idiot.”

Annie leans into his back, the cold tip of her nose resting against his shoulder. “If he’s not an idiot, he’ll know it’s _not_ your fault.” She tells him, in a tone that is somehow both gentle and fierce at once. 

“You have to say that, you’re my wife.” Finnick teases her halfheartedly, because if he doesn’t make a joke now he’ll probably start crying. 

And then there’s that word. Wife. My _wife._ He’ll probably be eighty years old and just being able to say that word will be enough to lighten even his darkest moods.

Judging from the way Annie’s breath hitches, it has the same effect on her.

“I’m also the best person you know, remember?” She teases him back. “So obviously I know what I’m talking about.”

Finnick turns his head so that he’s looking at her over his shoulder, their faces only inches apart. “Of course, how could I ever forget?” He asks her, voice dropping too low to be kidding anymore.

Annie bites her lip, and she must note the way his gaze drops down to follow the action because she sighs and says, “Finnick, we only have twenty minutes before lights out.”

“Perfect, I want to see you.” Even though it sounds like a cheesy (or even sleazy) line, Finnick means it genuinely. He will of course take fumbling lovemaking with Annie in pitch black over the most perfect circumstances with anyone else, but now that he’s allowed to touch her whenever he wants, he misses being able to look at her too.

“But your letter-”

“I’m not going to write one.” Finnick says so swiftly that Annie laughs at him. “Okay, but I’m not saying that just because I want to have sex with you right now-”

“Mmmhmmm.”

He kisses her nose playfully, before his face falls into something more serious. “It’s too much for a letter,” Finnick explains softly. “Once this is all over, I’ll go find him and we’ll talk. I do want to try. It’s just…”

“Too much for a letter.” Annie repeats, understanding. And she really does, that’s the incredible thing.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you as a wife.” Finnick tells her, with genuine bewilderment.

Annie leans forward and kisses him. 

“By being the best person I know,” she whispers once she pulls away, but he doesn’t let her get far. He never plans to again.

  
  
  



End file.
